The Case of Emily Neil
by A.Mind.of.Disturbed.Current
Summary: COLD SQUAD. Ross assigns Ali a case she wouldn’t normally get and, as she soon finds out, there’s much more to the victim than meets the eye. Post 02x14 “Gavin MacInnis”.
1. Chapter 1

Title: The Case of Emily Neil

Author: A.Mind.of.Disturbed.Current

Rating: M

Pairing: Ali McCormick/Simon Ross

Disclaimer: I do not own Cold Squad and I make no money from this story.

Summary: COLD SQUAD. Ross assigns Ali a case she wouldn't normally get and as she soon finds out, there's much more to the victim than meets the eye. Post 02x14 "Gavin MacInnis".

Author's Note: This follows "The Case of William Black", but you could probably read this story without having read TCoWB. I'm sorry this has taken so long, but I'm back at school now and I've been very busy with my martial arts and of course my schoolwork, also, I was ill for a couple of weeks and I'm still not 100. This kind of feels like a short chapter, but the following ones will hopefully be longer, once the storyline really gets started and the squad starts investigating the case. Expect an update later on this week or next weekend.

Chapter One

"Sergeant McCormick."

Ali stopped walking and turned at the sound of her name. "Inspector." If she was going to be honest with herself, she'd hoped that she had arrived early enough that she could have avoided him, at least for the time being. And yet here he was, and she had only just walked into the building. "What can I do for you?"

"So, um, how about dinner tonight?" he asked, looking thoroughly adorable with his obvious awkwardness and his hands jammed into his pockets.

"Yeah, sure. If that's all inspector—" Since the MacInnis case, things had been a bit weird between them, and what she had hoped would clarify their relationship had ended up only making it more complicated for both of them, complicated and awkward. And deputy chief Malcolm wasn't helping matters any, even though she didn't really trust anyone who played politics like the deputy chief did, she couldn't quite silence that little voice in the back of her head that took Malcolm's words to heart.

"Not quite. I've got a case for you sergeant, the file's in my office."

They started walking again. "That was fast, I only just finished the paperwork on MacInnis."

"I'm getting pressure from my superiors," he explained, "they're worried about PR." Having arrived at his office, Ross gestured for her to precede him and closed the door behind them. He grabbed the file off his desk, "A seventeen year old girl disappeared a couple of months ago. The case went cold fast, but from everything the investigating officers could find, there was no way she just ran away."

"A couple of months ago? Is there a connection to an old case?"

"Nothing like that."

"Then why so soon?" Ali was puzzled as to why the cold squad was being handed such a fresh case, generally the 'real cops' liked to keep those, not that Ross thought as little as most when it came to the abilities of the cold squad, at least, not since he'd seen their work first hand.

"The parents are insistent and quite influential. My superiors believe it would look very bad if we stopped looking into this, but we can't afford to tie up those officers any longer, so I've been ordered to give you the case."

"Ah. Well, maybe with a fresh perspective I can find something new."

"That's the idea." Before she could turn and leave, he pulled her against him and brushed his lips gently against hers before pulling back, his forehead resting against hers for a moment, "I'll see you tonight then."

"Yeah, see you then."

* * *

"Hey, Logozzo!" Ali yelled, starting the detective, who had been leaning back in his chair with his feet propped up on his desk and nearly causing him to fall. He stopped himself, grabbing a hold of the desk and pulling himself forward, planting all four legs of his chair on the ground.

"What was that for McCormick?" He held up a folder, "Look, I've done my paperwork."

"Wow, miracles do happen. Good news, now you get to help me on a new case." She held up the folder Ross had given her.

"You found a new one already?" he asked.

"Actually, inspector Ross gave this one to me." Ali knew it was a mistake to mention her boss as soon as the words passed her lips; Logozzo seemed to the notion of a relationship between the two of them to be amusing.

"Really? Inspector Ross?" Tony raised his eyebrows and grinned at her, "So, how is it going with you two?"

"Shut up Tony, I mean it," she warned.

"Alright, I get it, Ross is off limits," he said, holding his hands up in mock surrender, "So, tell me about our new case."

"Nope, we wait until everyone's here."

"Then I'm going for a smoke." He stood, grabbing a pack of cigarettes, and strode past Ali, "Let me know when they get here."

* * *

Once Ali had left, Ross sunk into his chair, careful not to lean back too much. Though his bruises had had some time to heal, his back was still sore and vulnerable to pressure, and the doctors had taken him off the painkillers. Of course, for appearances sake, he behaved as if he was perfectly fine. He was getting rather tired of everyone asking him how he was feeling. And then there was Ali. Sometimes he could see the guilt in her eyes, as if she held herself responsible for the actions of the mentally disturbed woman. As with their relationship, they hadn't really talked about it.

Ali's behaviour had seemed a bit strange to him recently, to him, she seemed more hesitant than usual. Perhaps it was just the new level of awkwardness, but he had a feeling there was something more to it than that. He didn't know whether she regretted that night, only that he didn't. It may have been too much too soon in their relationship, but it wasn't regret that he felt. All he knew was that he cared for her a great deal and would do everything he could to make this work.

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

Title: The Case of Emily Neil

Author: A.Mind.of.Disturbed.Current

Rating: M

Pairing: Ali McCormick/Simon Ross

Disclaimer: I do not own Cold Squad and I make no money from this story.

Summary: COLD SQUAD. Ross assigns Ali a case she wouldn't normally get and as she soon finds out, there's much more to the victim than meets the eye. Post 02x14 "Gavin MacInnis".

Author's Note: This follows "The Case of William Black", but you could probably read this story without having read TCoWB. Please review and let me know how I'm doing. You can expect another update this weekend, or perhaps early next week (Monday or Tuesday). The next chapter (or the one after depending on how things go) will still be about the case, but there will be some Ali/Ross.

Chapter Two

"Alright, now that we're all here, we've got a new case." Ali pointed to a picture of an average looking young woman, "Emily Neil, age 17, went missing just over two months ago. She left for school, but apparently never made it inside the building. Her parents reported her missing that evening when she didn't come home and the school called to report her lack of attendance that day."

She picked up and opened the file. "The initial investigation found nothing to indicate what might have happened to her, so we don't have much to go on. I'll re-interview the family, Logozzo, I need you to go to her school and talk to her friends and teachers, and Eddie, I need you to look into whether there are any similar cases, before or after her disappearance, oh, and her Internet use, there's a report on that somewhere. Get Detective Cortez to help you."

* * *

Ali walked up the driveway toward the house. It looked just like every other home on the block, though a little smaller than most. It was fairly nice, though not new or particularly impressive, and it was generally well kept. There were no signs of damage or anything in need of repair and the yard was regularly tended to. The few gardens there were at the front of the house were free of weeds, the lawn had been mown within the past couple of days and there was a pair of muddy rubber boots sitting beside the door, a pair of gardening gloves stuffed in the tops. And of course, the typical family vehicle, an SUV, was parked in the driveway, freshly washed of course. It looked like a scene you might see on a television commercial, nice, but not too nice, and completely stereotypical.

She knocked on the door; interestingly, there was no doorbell to ring. Less than a minute later, the door opened, revealing a teenage girl. She was on the short side and so skinny Ali thought it was amazing her jeans didn't fall down. Her clothes were all obviously mainstream, exactly what any teenager who was anyone was wearing to school. She didn't bear much resemblance to Emily, not that it was likely you'd be able to tell with all the makeup she was wearing, but Ali surmised that this was Emily's younger sister, Kiran. "What do you want?"

Ali pulled out her badge, "Kiran right? I'm sergeant McCormick, are your parents home?" she asked.

"No," she said, leaning against the doorframe, "Why are you here?"

"I'm taking over your sister's case, do you know when your parents will be back?"

"My dad's at work. He won't be back until late. My mom ran out to the store, she'll be home soon."

Ali frowned slightly at the girl's lack of reaction at the mention of her missing sister. "Right. Mind if I came in and waited for your mom?"

She shrugged, "I don't care," and walked away, leaving the door open. Ali followed her inside. "Oh, yeah, take off your shoes, my mom will throw a fit if you don't," she called back over her shoulder.

After removing her shoes, she followed Kiran through the house. It was equally nice inside as it was outside, a large, curving staircase led up to the uppermost floor from just inside the door, the wall was covered in family photos, individual shots of each family member dating back a couple of years and a number depicting the entire family at various locations. In one they were at the beach. Kiran led her down the hall, past a study crammed full of bookshelves and a computer, and into the kitchen.

The teenager sat down at the breakfast bar, there was no table at which the family could eat, and, turning around on the stool, stared at the sergeant. The living room, separated from the kitchen by the bar was neat and tidy, and looked like a picture from a catalogue. Nice furniture arranged around a large TV, no doubt they had a satellite dish mounted somewhere outside, and magazines strategically placed on the center table. Along the walls, there were a number of cabinets; likely containing the family's movie collection and anything else they hid away in there to reduce the appearance of clutter.

By contrast, the kitchen was a mess. Dishes were everywhere, on the countertop, the breakfast bar, and even a couple on top of the refrigerator. The way it looked made Ali think that the family washed dishes as needed or when things started to smell. Kiran saw her looking at the dishes, "Emily always washed them," she said.

She wasn't sure what it was, but something about Kiran bothered her. Maybe her act was just a front to hide what she felt, but the way she talked about her sister, so casually, rubbed Ali the wrong way. It just didn't seem like how someone should act when their sister was missing. She made a mental note to ask the mother about the relationship the two girls had. "So why aren't you at school?"

"I wasn't feeling well."

"Right." Ali was saved the necessity of continuing the conversation by the sound of the front door opening.

"Mom, the cops are here!" the girl yelled.

* * *

Eddie looked over at Cortez, who was flipping through the list of the Internet sites Emily regularly visited, "Why do you think we got this case so soon?" he asked, stopping his search for related cases momentarily, "Cases this fresh don't really make their way down here very often."

"I don't know," she replied, not bothering to look up.

"You think it has something to do with Ross?"

"Eddie, I really don't care."

"Well, I'm only saying, McCormick had to look at that file when she was talking, if she asked for it, she'd know the case inside out by now. You know what she's like."

Cortez frowned, "I don't see what the big mystery is, if McCormick didn't find it, then someone else did, and they passed it along."

"Yeah, but, don't you think something's going on between them?"

"Inspector Ross and McCormick? No. And if there was, I wouldn't care." She cursed inwardly at herself for allowing Eddie to suck her into this conversation. She really didn't care who her boss was dating; all she cared about was getting her ass out of cold squad. "If you're finished, you can help me look through this stuff. The girl spent a lot of time on the computer."

Eddie took the hint and continued with his work in silence. If he couldn't be out in the field like McCormick and Logozzo, he had at least hoped to make this boring, and unfortunately important, task a little more interesting, but Cortez wasn't terribly receptive to his attempts at conversation and he had to admit that that disappointed him a little.

* * *

"So, Kevin, how was Emily before she disappeared?" asked Logozzo, looking across the table at the first of the students he had to interview.

Kevin was extremely tall and skinny, and there was something odd about him apart from the obvious uncontrollable twitching in his hands. Of course, there were many problems associated with great intelligence, and if he believed what the principal had told him, Kevin was one of the brightest students to come through the school, at least, since Emily. "I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know? Two months ago you said she was fine, what changed?"

He twitched rather violently. "I hadn't talked to her in a couple of weeks."

"You didn't mention this before," Logozzo said, glancing down at the copy of Kevin's first interview, "Why?"

"I was pissed off, okay? We all were. I just wanted to get out of there."

"All of who?"

"You know, Beth, Karen, Sam, the whole group."

"Why were you upset with Emily?" He knew the group he was talking about, it was the group of friends that Emily had hung out will literally all the time, the only friends that she had had really, at least according to her mother.

"She stopped hanging out with us, wouldn't even talk to any of us."

He resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "Do you know why?"

"No, that was what pissed me off most of all. One day we just found out that she was 'done' with us and wasn't coming back."

"How'd you find out that she was 'done'?"

"Karen told us, I don't know how she knew."

TBC


	3. Chapter 3

Title: The Case of Emily Neil

Author: A.Mind.of.Disturbed.Current

Rating: M

Pairing: Ali McCormick/Simon Ross

Disclaimer: I do not own Cold Squad and I make no money from this story.

Summary: COLD SQUAD. Ross assigns Ali a case she wouldn't normally get and as she soon finds out, there's much more to the victim than meets the eye. Post 02x14 "Gavin MacInnis".

Author's Note: This follows "The Case of William Black", but you could probably read this story without having read TCoWB. Please review and let me know how I'm doing.

Chapter Three

Ali sat on the couch beside Stella Neil, Emily's mother, sipping the tea that had been pressed on her. "Why are you taking over my daughter's…case?" the woman asked, not making eye contact.

"Well, my bosses thought it might be helpful to get a new perspective, maybe the officers missed something the first time around," she said. It was a half-truth. She knew the only reason anyone was working the case was politics, but Ross had said something about the idea being to get a fresh perspective, so it wasn't a total lie.

"What do you want to know?"

"What happened that morning?"

"We had a fight, she came downstairs looking terrible, she never takes much pride in her appearance. I asked her to go comb her hair, and she started screaming at me. Before I could do anything, she grabbed her things and ran out the door."

Ali placed her cup on one of the coasters on the table, "Did she normally behave like that?"

"Well, she never gave us any respect, not like Kiran," her face lit up for a split second as she spoke her other daughter's name, "but she was never too bad. Mostly she was just moody and sat upstairs in her room, just like most other teenagers her age, right?"

"Some teenagers are like that," she responded carefully, "What did she do when she was upstairs?"

"I don't know. Not drugs or anything like that, if that's what you mean. Besides schoolwork, I guess she'd watch TV, go online, and she was always writing in that journal of hers."

"Journal? You didn't mention a journal after Emily went missing."

"I didn't?"

"No, and the officers didn't find one in her room."

"Well, I, uh, was worried about her, so the night before, after she wrote in it, I took it. I wanted to know what was happening," she admitted, her cheeks stained red with embarrassment of her crime.

Ali refrained from chastising the woman for her actions. "Did you find anything?"

"Nothing that would explain what happened." Tears welled up in her eyes. "I suppose I already knew, but she hates us, my husband and I and Kiran."

Ali put a comforting hand on her arm, "I'm going to need that journal. There might be something that can help us find her."

Stella nodded, "I just want my daughter back."

* * *

Ali was deep in thought, sitting at her desk with Emily's journal lying open in front of her. The sandwich she had picked up on the way back for lunch sat untouched beside it. Just reading the few pages she had was enough to make her wonder how much the initial investigation had missed.

There were repeated references to someone who seemed to be important to Emily, but there was never mention of a name or anything that would identify who he was. All she knew was that whoever this person was, they were male and seemed to be a large part of Emily's life. She had asked Emily's mother about it, but she didn't have any idea who the mystery man might be. Normally Ali might consider that this might be the boyfriend, but the tone of the writing didn't seem appropriate for that, though she couldn't quite put her finger on the exact reason she was comfortable completely ruling out that theory. She would read the rest of the journal later; perhaps a name was mentioned in earlier entries.

And then there were the references to her family. It was true, she did seem to hate them, given that she had written those words at least once, but more troubling was her justifications for that hatred, which seemed to be rooted in their day-to-day treatment of Emily. Ali couldn't be sure that everything written was entirely true and not exaggerated, but her parents seemed to be more controlling than most, and loved her younger sister more. The latter, Ali thought might be true, the way Stella's face had lit up when she praised Kiran in the midst of answering questions about Emily's disappearance was disturbing. At least there didn't appear to be any abuse going on, at least not physical.

The interview had lasted all morning, and she hadn't even had the chance to speak with Kiran properly because her mother insisted that she was ill and needed to rest, a fact that Ali doubted, but refrained from arguing about. The mother's opinions of her oldest daughter were troubling, she admitted that the girl was smart was claimed she had little common sense, poor behaviour and a terrible attitude, but though the father and sister had virtually the same opinions, all the other interviews in the file didn't reflect that at all.

More and more she was considering the possibility that Emily had in fact run away, but even if that were the case, that wouldn't mean the investigation would end. When a seventeen year old runs away from home, generally they intend on going home at some point. No, something happened to this girl and Ali was going to find out.

Ali picked up her phone and dialed Logozzo's cell number, perhaps some of Emily's friends or teachers knew who the mysterious person was.

* * *

Logozzo put his cell phone away, "Kevin, was there someone Emily was hanging out with apart from your group?"

"I don't think she had any other friends…"

"Did she have a boyfriend?"

"No, I would have noticed that."

"What about someone, maybe older, who she talked to a lot or you saw her with?"

"Maybe, there was this one teacher I saw her talking to a lot, but I don't think anything was going on…"

"Why?"

"Well, she was in his class, and whenever I overheard anything, they always seemed to be either talking about the coursework or something like that."

"And which teacher was this?"

"Mr. Levinson." He fidgeted. "Um, can I go now? It's almost lunch time and I have a math club meeting."

"Sure." Logozzo watched as Kevin walked out and the next student, presumably another former friend of Emily's walked in. It was going to be a very long day, and he still had the teachers to interview once the school day ended.

* * *

Ali was so absorbed in reading the journal that she didn't hear him come in. "Did you forget?' he asked.

Her head snapped up at the sound of Ross' voice, "I'm sorry, I just got so wrapped up in the case."

"What are you reading?"

"Emily's journal, her mother had it all this time."

"Can I persuade you to take a break?" he asked, "There's still time for dinner."

She smiled and stood, "Alright."

TBC

Author's Note: Alright, next chapter more Ali and Ross, and I'm already coming up with an idea for a story after this one that will focus more on them like the first did. I haven't written anything down, but I'm starting to get an idea. The next update for this story might take a bit more time, I have a busy stretch coming up in my life, but I'll do my best to write and get an update as soon as I can.


End file.
